As organizations become more and more global and the need for timely, pertinent information and collaboration becomes more critical, organizations need systems that allow its members to exchange massive amounts of information worldwide, internally and externally, in a real-time environment and in an effective manner so that members of the organization can use the timely information to keep up-to-date on pertinent developments and use this information to collaborate effectively with others in the organization. Information that is not managed effectively has diminished value and may actually hinder productivity as members of an organization become overwhelmed with information—useful and useless alike. An effective information management and collaboration system needs to be persistent, intuitive, scalable (e.g., as applicable to two people as it is to twenty thousand people), individually customizable and flexible to use.
Applications have developed over the years that have tried to address these needs. Although successful in some respects, none of these systems have developed to the point where they can manage all of the information within an organization, whether generated by humans or otherwise, in an integrated manner and then deliver this managed information in a focused, effective manner to the people who need such information. Furthermore, none of these systems allow a user to pick and choose their information sources and how they are displayed to them; rather, in these systems, these types of parameters are pre-set by the network administrator. Accordingly, there is a need for an effective information management and collaboration system that is persistent, intuitive, scalable, individually customizable and flexible to use.